iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Pleasantly surprised by all the private messages of support for this so just resharing it!

Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

We've seen a huge uptick in Greek-origin work populating stages, screens & literature over recent years, but v. few have any Greeks at all involved in their creation. For arguably the first time in modern history, Greeks are able to tell our own stories: here's why we should be empowered to do so.

substack.com

"You have cared for them as well as you could, but now please give them back": if we're to make Greek plays, we must invite Greek artists to the table.

Καλό Πάσχα!

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Earlier this year my company turned 10. I’ve been thinking all year about how to mark it, and the result is a new look for the company, a new roadmap for the next 10 years, a new website, and I’ve only gone and started a bloody Substack. Please do check it all out on paulvirides.com!

Black text on a yellow background, reading: "The Roadmap. We are... scrupulously principled, proudly nimble, and commercially & artistically ambitious. / Today PVP is outlining a new roadmap for the next decade - a statement of who we are and a set of goals for who we want to be by 2035."

Black text against a yellow background, reading: "The website. Read more about the roadmap, check out the Substack, see what we're up to, find out how we can support your project... all over on the new website. paulvirides.com."

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

A huge part of the problem is ACE funding discourages anything that looks like “high” pay and most applications severely underestimate the workload required. And producers, GMs and creatives are very rarely properly paid for prep time or for incidentals like post-press night visits. We gotta fix it.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

For the first 9 years of my career I earned between 25p and £5 an hour. That only changed when I became an ED (just before Covid), and finally earned slightly above NMW. And yet I was on the hook if the shows collapsed. Important stuff @freelancersmake.bsky.social (1/2) variety.com/2025/theater...

variety.com

Crisis Deepens for U.K. Entertainment Freelancers as 44% Earn Below Living Wage

U.K. entertainment freelancers face unprecedented crisis with 44% earning below living wage, 70% feeling insecure about careers, survey reveals.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Sorry but this photo is high camp

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

If you want to counter the (completely overstated) “rise of Reform”, you do it by engaging in debate and leadership and making the case for an alternative way forward. Not cowing to insincere, headline-grabbing garbage just to try and win over some racists who will never vote for you anyway.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Starmer’s speech was a disgraceful addendum to his already zealously populist, ideologically barren government. This isn’t what Labour is for and it’s a punch in the face to hundreds of good MPs and thousands of party members who are now stuck defending it for fear of being purged. It’s obscene.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

My grandparents didn’t come to an island of strangers, nor did they leave one behind when they died, nor will we create one by welcoming people of all backgrounds to our shores. Our diversity is what makes us British in the first place.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Once again I implore gatekeepers to include Greek creatives and actors and staff when you pick up Ancient Greek plays and decide to put them on. If you knew an ounce of Greek history between classical times and now, you'd know why it matters that Greeks get to finally tell their own stories.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Have been quiet on here but we started rehearsals for this this week and it’s already a joy. Come see us! underbellyboulevard.com/tickets/pop-...

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Watching this speech live it’s pretty obvious that Trump doesn’t actually understand how tarries work. Which is… something.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

I’m locked in war with housekeeping at my hotel. Every day I return to find they’ve switched the air con to “heating” mode (because in Greece they hear their buildings to an ungodly 23 degrees so a cool 21 on the cool setting is like ice for them). And every day I switch it back to “cooling” mode.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

If that all sounds baffling, I urge you to spend a little time engaging with Melina Mercouri, Manos Hatzidakis, Mikis Theodorakis & Yannis Varoufakis - not cos they’re the best examples, but because they’re the ones who’ve exported it to the English speaking world far more eloquently than me. (Fin)

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

It’s SO powerful to see it playing out. Pride in the flag or folk music or local history isn’t something they’re embarrassed about. It isn’t something they use to bludgeon people with. It’s just “there”. An assumed truth. And no right winger can claim to be the only one who cares for the country.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

No doubt Greece is generally more right wing than the UK and has had multiple problems with fascism over the last 100 years (including 2 govts and a recently banned party), but national pride isn’t “owned” by the right. The left own it too, perhaps even more purely and unabashedly.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Greeks are so confident about the importance of their (our) culture, but (in the bohemian parts of Athens at least) also fiercely interested in social justice, the power of the arts and the values of liberty and freedom.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Learning lots of things on my travels around Athens but one that we Brits could really learn from: how to have national pride without automatically pivoting rightward. (Mini thread 🧵)

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

It’s magnificent! (The Parthenon, although the podcast too hehe)

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

🙈 it’s been an emotional day!! I cannot emphasise how wonderful it is to hear a GREEK telling the stories of Greece for once (no shade to the QI guy of course 🙃). PS that intro song has been swirling round my head all day. Magnifique. Or should I say θαύμα!

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Very much run the risk of becoming an @sturdyalex.bsky.social stan account at this point but I listened to this today on the Actual Acropolis while sightseeing/reconnecting with my roots and DAMN IT’S GOOD. And that’s from a guy who burst into tears when he saw the Parthenon so it must be true.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

In two days I'll be in Athens for a week reconnecting with those roots I spent most of my youth resisting. Isn't that what every single 2nd gen immigrant does in their 30s? Anyway: tips for places to go/unmissable stops v much appreciated. And any theatre people in Greece/Αθήνα: hmu, let's say hi 👋

media.tenor.com

a blue and white flag is waving in the wind against a blue sky

ALT: a blue and white flag is waving in the wind against a blue sky

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

But why would you announce the long-leaked Eurovision entry on the same day as the biggest gay-world album drop of the year?? Wild.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Just in time for my trip to Athens 🇬🇷!

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Oh good so it turns out the closest Oscars in a generation is also going to be the fucking weirdest Oscars in a generation.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it wasn't until I was nearly a decade into my career and a literal chief executive of an organisation that I earned above the minimum wage on a paid role in theatre. We have to fix this. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

theguardian.com

Arts sector’s use of unpaid interns for some roles could be illegal, experts say

Concerns also raised that practice prevents young working-class people from finding paid work in creative industries

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Reposted by Paul Virides

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

I think what I loathe most about KB is her dressing every inane statement she makes as a “truth bomb” or a “mic drop”. She’s like a teenage YouTuber with 350 followers who *somehow* has ended up in charge of the Conservative Party.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

For many, many years now the Telegraph has simply been a pseudo-intellectual tabloid, using longer words and nicer formatting than their red-top rivals, but ultimately nothing more than a sensationalist, clickbait-driven bucket of slop. It's surprising that anyone even takes any notice anymore.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Jannik Sinner really determined to be the bad boy of tennis huh. Djokovic and Rune breathing a sigh of relief. Maddening.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Tariffs 👏 aren’t 👏 a 👏 charge 👏 on 👏 exporters 👏 they’re 👏 a 👏 charge 👏 on 👏 your 👏 own 👏 citizens 👏 you 👏 absolute 👏 buffoon 👏

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Quite surprised at the muted response to this. Controlling (or attempting to control) arts and media is fascism 101.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I need you to write a book called “Horny Porter” pls

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Yeah the little space man doing a Nazi salute is the end of it for me, deleting X for good. Enough.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Good to see the US establishment entirely disregarding any idea of principles for the sake of showing up on TV one more time.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Today is Paul Virides Productions' 10th birthday - a slightly wild milestone. The last decade has like a warmup act since I've almost continuously had a primary job paying the bills while PVP exists in the background. But looking ahead at the next 10, PVP feels like the main character. That's fun 🥳

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

I don't know who needs to hear this (well actually I do) but if you follow your favourite OF creators on Instagram on your main WE CAN ALL SEE IT.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Have been more than a bit quiet on here after some bad family news in December stunted my capacity for engaging with a whole new platform. But slowly migrating back. While I adjust, I thought this was very good from @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/t...

nytimes.com

‘Tammy Faye’ and ‘Cinderella’ Were Hits in London but Failed on Broadway (Gift Article)

What happened to “Sunset Boulevard,” “Back to the Future,” “Cinderella” and “Tammy Faye” when they crossed the Atlantic?

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Nothing fills me with dread more than a British soap cutting to a montage laid over a countertenor singing a Christmas carol. Only truly awful things can happen when they activate Operation Away In A Manger.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

If I had £1 for every time TodayTix told me the sale was ending soon...

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

This is your periodic reminder that the Parthenon marbles were sold by an occupying colonial force to the British.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

If you saw Wicked for the first time on film, please do your best to go see it on stage too. I truly think the film is a marvel, but it’s no match for the zing of a live orchestra and actual Elphaba belting her actual face off in front of you.

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

I cried 5 times. It is magnificent. It’s been so tenderly produced by Marc Platt and David Stone. However it reminded me of a truth: film is simply no substitute for live theatre. And quietly, under the surface, behind the scenes, it’s revived my love for what we do. (2/2)

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Paul Virides @paulvirides.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

I’ve been putting off seeing Wicked for a week. The show means an absurd amount to me - I first saw it on Boxing Day 2006 in Idina Menzel’s final days as Elphaba and I’ve been completely enamoured ever since. (1/2)

media.tenor.com

a man in a blue jacket is smiling and looking at the camera in a room .

ALT: a man in a blue jacket is smiling and looking at the camera in a room .

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